Naval Ravikant on the importance of hiring high-agency people

Naval defines agency as:

“People who just solve problems without even being asked to solve the problem—they identify the problem, they go solve it, they don’t even necessarily have to update you every step of the way, they’re not asking silly questions, and they’re just coming up with solutions.”

He believes this is important because “building a startup is an infinite set of problems that are being thrown at you.” And there comes a day where you can’t even look at every problem your company is facing—let alone solve every one of them.

He cites the Vinod Khosla aphorism:

"The team you build is the company you build, not the plan you make.”

And your ability to solve problems is based entirely on how many problem-solvers you have at your company. As Naval puts it:

“If you have somebody who takes 10% of your time and management to solve problems, you can only have 10 of those people working with you. But if somebody takes 5%, you can have 20 of those people.”

When building Airchat and AngelList, he thought of each team as a Navy Seal team:

“Everyone is just really good at what they do. They know their job. They do it. They don’t complain. They’re not egotistical about it. And if they have to constantly be corrected, led around by the nose, you have to clean up after them, or you question their judgement, it’s not going to work out.”

Full video: AngelList “Fireside Chat with Avlok & Naval | AngelList Confidential 2023” (Dec 2023)

P.S. We’ve put together a YouTube playlist with every Naval Ravikant insight we’ve ever shared. You can watch it here: "Best startup advice from Naval Ravikant"